IKF does infact stand for International Kungfu Federation. Now, if you confront him, he would probably just say, that it is a mistake(that they put on 2 F's instead of one) and that it will be corrected in the next edition. But then again, in Geneve and before 2003.
Then he would probably claim that it is a secret organisation, therefore we couldn't have heard of it. But a secret international federation that has schools all over? And is situated at Rue de la confederation. I just don't believe it.

Let's not digress too much, here. Some of Tony's fellow evangelists may well be very genuine and sincere people (although, i admit all those biogs at avanti ministries don't make for light reading!)

If you want to stick to just checking out TA that's fine, but if you look at what some of the other evangelists have written about themselves both on the avanti site and on other sites then there is a whole lot of very serious crimes including conspiracy to murder, kidnap, false imprisonment, robbery, impersonating a police officer and various other violent offenses that these people are claiming they committed but that they were never prosecuted for.

Littleoldme: It is of course not a proof, but actually, I noticed the same yesterday. It should at least make people wonder. As a christian, I would very much like to know more about that church.
I will also try to pass on the word of Jesus, but neither will I use a falsh story, nor will I hide my true purpose until halfway through a book or something like that

Thing is I know a few people who did terrible things as young adults and who turned their lives around and now help others. I strongly believe that people can and do change and that we should all give people a second chance.

My concerns relate to the very filmic and dramatic accounts of these people's pasts and that some of them seem to be describing very serious crimes that they were never punished for.

Where I live recently a group of young adults and teens who were committing all kinds of antisocial crimes were given ASBOs after they filmed themselves committing crimes and then posted the footage on youtube.

The situation with these evangelists is in some ways very similar.

I don't know whether these people are genuine or not either in terms of repenting from their past crimes or whether their accounts of their past lives are partly or wholly fictional.

Someone needs to runs some checks on them though IMO as right now it looks rather worrying. IMO

Littleoldme: Exactly, there are people who had a painful past, who now help others. And I feel that Tony(and maybe also Avanti ministeries) uses it as a trick. Their(Avanti) evangelical message is clear, and therefore I mainly suspect Tony of being a liar.
Maybe he actually does it to spread the gospel as far as possible in order to follow one the main philosophy that Avanti has: Efficiency(a word I actually don't like in the context of mission)
But that can never excuse him lying. Always be clear, never hide your intentions, be an example.

The point i am making is that Tony saw what he saw. In the end it's hard to prove one way or the other and as with most biographies there will always be incidents where you just have to take the authors word as truth.

With regard to your conclusion about the book as a whole and your opinion of Tony, we will simply have to agree to disagree! As the publisher we stand by Tony and his book. You are of course at liberty to pursue your efforts to counter the claims he makes and i'm sure in the end the truth will prevail.

With regards to the financial proceeds from the book, what i can tell you is that every penny of Tony's royalty's go back into buying books which he largely gives away so making money is actually the very least of his concerns.

Regards

Malcolm

As a publisher, what sort of fact checking went into your reviews and and editing process of Tony's work?

I'm very interested in hearing about his visit in as much detail as possible

Thanks again

Sure thing

He came to my old high school about 4 years ago and gave an hour long speech extremely similar to the one in the video above. The speech was delivered to the whole school (about 700 students ranging from 11-18 year olds). It was obvious, as evident in the above video, that he was using the Kung Fu/martial arts story solely to promote his religious views which he focused the second half of his speech on.

There weren't any books given out but our school library did stock a copy of it after his visit. (I don't know whether we were given or purchased this)

I will contact my school next week about whether they paid for the presentation or not as i think this could be possible evidence whether he uses this for money making or recruitment purposesí.

Looking back I feel slightly foolish believing his outlandish tales, but at the time it was one hell of a story.

IKF does infact stand for International Kungfu Federation. Now, if you confront him, he would probably just say, that it is a mistake(that they put on 2 F's instead of one) and that it will be corrected in the next edition.

You could catch him out there as he has called it the IKFF in numerous occasions.

Check out this interview, he uses the double F at about 20 seconds and describes the competitions in little detail.

I went to a free "show" here in Denmark. Now, I don't know if the churches paid, but I can find out.
I actually think he is doing this to reach out with the gospel, but it is so wrong to do it this way.
His ministering is based on efficiency in spreading the gospel(seen on his website). So my point is that he uses the story to hype up christians in order to get us to give his book away and invite non-christians to his "shows"
As christians we believe that God has the power to do amazing things and then we sometimes tend to get less critical to some extend.
I'm not intending to preach, just trying to find different explanations.
Because seriously, I don't get it. It could be the fame, it could be a misguided zeal.
I mainly believe the last one actually. He has done it for such a long period of time that he actually believes it is allright to lie, while spreading the truth of the gospel.
That is my guess.
Furthermore, I don't like this "fishbait" method he is using, whether it's true or not.
He should be clear about his intentions from the beginning of the book.

And from the view of a christian: He should believe that the power of God saves souls, not the power of a very questionable story. It would have been better to put the book away and just focus on the gospel. Instead of telling a story that a lot of people can't relate to and actually find very hard to believe. True or not.